Dialogue ~ 36

Previously, I wrote “what we have co-created is a tapestry of light.” Another way of describing this might be of various symphonies that are playing throughout time. History isn’t of the past but is in the now. The body might change, the personality might change, but so too does our role in the ‘creation’ of what is being experienced.

We are incredible story tellers; each generation builds a picture of the world as it appears and this informs the next generation who will look for ways to make their mark upon it and to improve it in some way. In this way, we can convince ourselves that we are progressing as a species. Hey look, we have discovered fire, electromagnetism, we own these gadgets, we are educated and sophisticated in our thinking. Yes all of this is true.

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.”

(T S Eliot, from ‘Little Gidding’, Four Quartets)

Do we come ‘full circle’ as if all that we have known of the physical world is but a giddy ride or a dismal fog? Do we return as that which knows what it is to be human in the world? Where is this ‘beginning’ anyway? Is it some distant galaxy or point of light?

Where is T S Eliot pointing towards, when he uses language such as ‘the source of the longest river, the hidden waterfall, the children of the apple tree, the stillness between two waves of the sea’? Is this source the same ‘beginning’ as Jesus was speaking of to his disciples? How does the ‘two waves of the sea’ relate to ‘being and becoming’?

Is the waterfall which T S Eliot refers to as ‘being’ (from the perspective of becoming) and is the longest river that of the Milky Way? Are we children of the universe, playing in an apple tree of that which bestows knowledge? Having ‘fallen’ out of the tree (or down the rabbit hole as Lewis Carroll might have portrayed it), how do we awaken from the world as it appears? Will we recognise that we did not fall but are frozen in time, deeply immersed in an image of ourselves in the world from all angles, as if the apple or the rabbit (worm) hole had fragmented light? One twist and we are free. Ah, but which way do we ‘twist’?

Within a world which appears through the senses and with the assistance of the intellect and of reasoning, we have navigated through the twists and turns (or contours) of an experience of life to arrive at this present moment. We have been participating in a story of how the world is and of who we are within it.

In this respect, we have much in common with the pre-Socratics who were exploring how the world comes into being and what is the nature of its change; so too with every priest, every philosopher and every person of science. It matters not whether our name is known in the history books or whether anyone will read our words. It is not thought per se which changes the world, so much as how we engage with thought and who we become in the process. It is this act of being in the world which has always changed everything.

We have a remarkable capacity to suspend reason and to use imagination as we immerse ourselves in story. Surprisingly, we can lose sight of who we are in the midst of it all and it is cogent for us to ask, ‘are we the ones reading the story or is it the story which is reading us’? This sounds bizarre but it is very much the human experience.

If we do not think for ourselves, then somebody else always will. People think they are thinking for themselves without even recognising whose thought it is that they are thinking. This aspect of human nature has been recognised for centuries. The Greek sophists demonstrated the art of rhetoric and politicians use it to this day.

What has changed over time is an extent to which the specialisation of science, along with an increasing availability of information through technology has generated complexity and has convoluted thought. Simplification, together with the persuasiveness of given narratives, can mean that the skills of critical thinking and capability of reason are able to reach conclusions which are increasingly detached from reality. Consider the disastrous effects of this phenomenon when the leaders of nations converge. 

Previously, I wrote, “it is through … our proclaiming that life is ‘this or that’ and acting with conviction (of our truth) that our field of vision is narrowed. We lose sight of how something is in actuality and of its proper relationship.”

Who is it that discerns what ‘is good’? Well that would be ‘me’ you say. How certain are you that your stream of thought has not been influenced by others? Perhaps they will have had a vested interest in creating a particular narrative for you to fit into or they will have shared their interpretation of how things are (which may have been given to them), simply out of the belief that it was the loving and appropriate act for them to do?

If you were to ask people what ‘the good’ means for them, there is likely to be a mixed response. Some will say that it is a demonstration of personal and/or shared values. Others will say that it is a state of owning or of experiencing something which is desirable. Others will say that it is the negation of all of these things. So too will there be a difference of opinion as to an extent to which a person is capable of bringing about ‘the good’ and of whether it is a collective or even transcendent experience.

Is an act of living in accordance with our truth of that which has been identified as ‘the good’ simply that we are being authentic with our own (or even another person’s) story? How is it possible that each of us can have our own truths and still have one greater truth which is known only of a creator? Perhaps it is the pursuit of ‘one unifying’ truth which is at cause of all struggle and of suffering in the world?

Is truth that which can lead us into clarity? What does it mean if a person were to ‘lose their truth’? Consider that if a person loses their truth, it means that they are unable to determine ‘the good’ for themselves and would navigate through life aspiring for whatever it is that somebody else has decided is good instead. From a Greek sophists’ or a politician’s perspective, that is heaven indeed; it certainly makes their job of influencing the opinions and behaviours of others that much easier. However, it does generate conflict between differing streams ‘of good’ and of suffering if one is unable to secure what is good.

So is a person’s truth the same as their critical thinking skills? No, because clearly a person can reason very soundly within any given narrative, particularly if they believe it is ‘good’. I would suggest that truth is a faculty of the higher mind to perceive the context in which one is thinking about ‘the good’ and to contemplate it’s validity. If my assessment is correct, then the higher mind is capable of perceiving ‘the bigger picture’ as it were and does not lose touch with happenings or things in actuality. When one strays from reality, as Parmenides had suggested, it is perhaps that one has lost touch with this faculty of higher mind and just as if one had ‘stepped off a path’ or ‘fallen’, is unable to discern one’s own truth of goodness from all of the other truths or concepts of good which others are suggesting for them.

Remember what I had previously suggested, “the energy which is available through our being in the world is in direct relationship with our embodiment of light”. Now consider how this embodiment of light and of energy relates to the faculty of being in one’s truth and of being able to perceive the proper context (reality) of what is appearing in the world. ‘Between two waves of the sea’ as T S Eliot had written, or in the window of one’s being and becoming, perhaps the kingdom of which Jesus spoke, is imminent only in its recognition.